“And again I say
unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19, 24)
The eye of the needle. Many people asked me what the eye of the needle means. Some people think
that it means literally the hole of a needle through which we do pass the
thread. Others insist on that the eye of the needle is a very narrow gate in
Jerusalem that was used when all the other gates were closed. This tight door
was so little that it was given the name of eye of the needle since camels had
to be discharged from everything before passing it and people riding them had
to lean down in order to remain on the animal. These suppositions do not give
any concrete explanation to the meaning of the eye of the needle. Was it a
symbol or reality or even a turn of phrase? And why was it a camel that had to
pass it through? Before digging deeper on the subject let us have a look at the
circumstances in which these words had been pronounced and the people they were
addressed to.
“And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing
shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God: but if thou wilt
enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said,
Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal,
Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and [thy] mother: and,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All
these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto
him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me. But
when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great
possessions. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a
rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto
you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19,16-24.)
Here is the famous story of the young rich man who becomes sad while
hearing Yeshua’s response and who chooses wealth instead of following the
Master. This part of the Bible often serves to accuse rich people or those who
live under better conditions. People are teaching everywhere that if someone is
rich, he cannot be saved without freeing himself from his money by giving it to
the poor. But what kind of richness are we talking about here? Who
is this young man? Why does he go to Yeshua? And why did he turn sad?
As we can see in the context, he is absolutely not an atheist nor a hedonistic
man living under the yoke of the mammon and whose unique goal was to gather as
much material wealth as possible. He obviously was a “rich” man fearing God
respecting his laws and seeking for Yeshua. We could say that we are facing a
good Pharisee, a religious man living in complete accordance with the law and
who wants to be even more perfect and pure than he is and who is searching for
what is so important for him: the eternal life. We are not faced with an
epicurean, a debauched guy but rather with someone who wants to be good. That’s
why he says: good Master, and asks the following question: What
good things shall I do? This man wants to act and do something in
order to get the eternal life.
Yeshua’s answer to this question is still topical for us today: keep
the commandments! He doesn’t say: believe in Me and everything will be
fine. He does not recommend him to accept him as the Messiah and then he will
directly have an access to the Paradise. Yeshua diverts our attention from
himself: “Keep the commandments”. It means keeping the Covenant
that the Eternal has established with your ancestors and which is still valid
for you now. Keep and preserve the covenant, protect it and live in it! Because
if you live inside this covenant, you will recognize the God that has chosen
and called you and who gave you a task and a ministry. The word commandment also
implies having a mission, a charge. Keep and preserve what God has given you
personally. The young man asks what commandments, which covenant shall I keep? Yeshua answers, the 10
commandments, the 10 Verbs. You must keep this covenant that had been sealed at
the Mount Sinai, at the place where the Lord revealed himself to you, at the
place where he called you by your name, there where he made a people from you
and where he showed you who you are, how to live and what to do. Without these
commandments, we cannot talk about any faithful life. It is impossible
to move on the path of Christ while denying the covenant. The words of Yeshua
remind and confirm at the same time that the Revelation of the Father is
eternal and immutable. Nothing can overwrite it. This covenant is the basis of
everything and your life of disciple can only be built upon that.
The young man continues and says: “All these things have I kept
from my youth up: what lack I yet?” What lack I yet, what is still
wrong in my life if all the words of the covenant are living and acting in my
heart since the beginning of my life of believer? If I know and keep all the commands
and orders that God has decreed concerning my own life, then still what fault
is in me? If I am living the life that has been given to me in which all the
laws are respected and if I am constantly remembering all the things that God
did in my life, what fault can still be left in me? How is it possible that the
foundations are good but the construction of the Temple does not go on after a
while? How can it be that my life of believer is sterile? How can it be that
the departure was so wonderful in our life but that we don’t grow any longer?
Why don’t we move further and why did we stop? Why did my life of believer stop
at a certain point and why am I unable to go forward? What is the problem? What
lack I yet?
Here is the answer: “If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and
come [and] follow me.” Perfect, according to the
Hebrew text “pure”. The word pure used here is the same as the
one used in the Old Testament to appoint the pure animals that were consecrated
to the sacrifice on the altar. It is a matter of a purity in which men can live
the fullness, the sincerity and the truth. This plenitude consists of being
able to be constantly in the presence of God, before and with Him. In other
words, if you would like to be ready for sacrifice, if you always want to be in
the altar of the Lord, if you wish to live a serving life and not just a
religious one, then – according to the Hebrew translation – you have to do the
following: “go and hand over (transfer) all that you own and give it to
the poor/humbles and you will have a treasure in the skies then come/go and
walk behind me” It is absolutely not a question of any distribution of
money or goods among the poor. It is not a calling for a charity. It doesn’t
mean that we have to distribute our money and other material property to the
homeless, the survivors of natural disasters, to those who have debts and to
poor families. He says: hand over (transfer) everything you have. All
those spiritual gifts that you received, pass them on to those who don’t have
them. Give them to the poor, to the humbles, give them to those who are hungry
for the Word and thirsty for understanding the will of God. All that you
understood and lived from the Word, you have to transmit it! Do not keep it for
yourself, be the testimony of it! Transmit what you are living or have lived in
this covenant wich the Lord has established with you through Yeshua HaMashiach.
Do the same with the gifts of the soul. Share your psychical or physical
talents with those who doesn’t have any or so many so that they could benefit
from it too. If you have a good thought do not keep it buried in you. If you
have a pure thought, express it, do share it with your neighbor. Don’t choke it
in you cause you received it with the aim of passing it on to those who are
missing it. Either a kind word, or a
tender clasp, or a friendly handshake, dare to give and to express it! “Hand
over all you have.” Since this is the way you can really serve. This
is how commandments become alive in and around you. This is how law is being
fulfilled if you don’t just use it for your own sake. If you do not just edify
yourself in spirit and soul by them, but if you share all this “wealth”, all
these spiritual and psychical gifts you received and that you put them to the
service of others. We did not receive the commandments to perfect ourselves but
rather to show others all we have lived through them. Do not hide the Word you
understood but give it to those who are hungry. Let us stop constructing
ourselves with thoughts that are coming from God and that are sanctified by
him, but let us pass them on so that other lives could also be built with their
aid. This is how you will have a treasure in the skies. A treasure which is a
real mine, an inexhaustible well. You won’t just have a treasure but a whole
treasury where the seeds of the Word will be at your disposal. Then as soon as one
seed will germinate in your hearth, you will be able to share it with others.
You can have a treasure or a gold mine in which your life of disciple will
blossom, live and give many fruits. The more I am sharing my own wealth, the
more wealthy I become myself. If a Word has sprouted in me and I pass it on, new
seeds falling from it will soon root at their turn inside of my hearth. The
more I am sharing my thoughts, the more I receive new ones. If I share what I
own, I will receive even more. This is the condition to be able to follow him
then, instead of freezing at one point being unsteady and perplex without
knowing where to go and how to serve him. Follow him, since if you stop, the
distance between you and him won’t stop growing. Although, if you live this
purity in which you become worthy of being sacrificed, if you are present in
his presence, if the Word of the Lord, his will and law revive in you and if
you pass on all this to the poor, you cannot stop moving on his path. There
can’t be any blocking in your life in such a case. You will be unable to go
round in circles around yourself since your life is going ahead and is being
edified on the path of Christ. This is how your life of believer becomes a life
of servant.
“But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he
had great possessions.” He went away sorrowful. The word translated by “Sorrowful” in English
also means pain, warning, idol/sham. He got sad, he was reached and it caused
him pain since he didn’t expect such a response. Instead of giving him all kind
of “good advices” in order to be even better and keep even more laws and
commands, the “good Master” asked him to hand overl all he received as
spiritual heritage, knowledge, vision and wealth concerning the Word of the
Eternal. His wealth was not mainly material, he did not own wide flocks of
animals but he was rather the owner of a deep knowledge concerning the Holy
Scriptures. The original text says that he had a huge wealth and lands. It was
a question of spiritual and psychical wealth: his gifts, his talents, his
abilities. He got sad exactly because he knew that if he would assume this path
of ministry, if he would share what he has with others, he would have to give
up with his own comfort. He knew that from that moment, his acts would no
longer serve his own spiritual edification but the construction of others too.
He would have had to come out of himself. Because this ministry implies
self-sacrifice, pain and fight for the others. The words of Yeshua warrned him.
These words destroyed the idol of his own goodness and purity that he tried to
complete. He thought that his faithful life did only serve his own purposes and
his own improvement. If this were true, man would easily become his own idol.
Yeshua said that if you are rich, if you have a spiritual or psychical fortune,
if you have many talents and abilities, these are not given to you for your own
sake. If you keep them for yourself, they will become your idols. If you share
them, they will become blessings for all.
Who is this young man then and what kind of wealth does he have? Because a
young man cannot really be rich yet since he is too young for having been able
to amass or product any fortune. He can be rich only if he inherited his wealth
from somewhere. In this case, all he has is the property of the one who gave it
to him. This young man has inherited all the spiritual and psychical wealth from
God. He did not make himself. That is why Yeshua warns him to go and to give it
to others. Because this fortune does not belong to him. You did not receive it
to use them for your own interest but to make it become fruitful in other
person's life too. This is why he went away with sadness because he did not
want to share his heritage.
“Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom
of heaven.”
In the Bible, the notion of wealth is very diversified. It
often means the earthly or material wealth which ownership was always linked
with very precise antecedents. All the patriarchs were rich men in that sense.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph had a huge fortune. The kings of Israel were
practically all rich without exception according to the will of God. In Psalms,
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes we can learn that wealth was often a gift from the
Eternal. People received it so that they should give the visible testimony of
the greatness of God. Wealth have never belonged to them. Abraham did not use
his fortune to build up his own life and to flourish himself. He had to pass it
all on to his descendants. Neither of the kings did consider this fortune as
being the fruit of their own work. They knew that this was a tool to represent
God among the People. This is exactly for this reason that all those who
considered their property as being theirs (either a king or a prominent
citizen), they went away from the right way and acted against the will of the
Lord. We also have the example of Job who was humble, pious and rich at the
same time. Although, he was above his wealth and did not depend from it since
he knew that all he had was a gift from God. In short, we can say that all those
who lived as rich men did always represent something. God entrusted them to
pass on their knowledge concerning his promises, calling and election. Material
wealth has never been other than the reflection of spiritual and psychical
wealth as the heritage of God. This wealth could be good or bad managed by
their owners. As we can read in Deuteronomy 8,18: “But thou shalt
remember the LORD thy God: for [it is] he that giveth thee power to get wealth,
that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as [it is]
this day.”
Such as the spiritual and psychical wealth, the earthly fortune does not
worth anything in itself. It was given as a remembering of the covenant
established with the Eternal. It aimed to remind us of this love relationship
in which we all can live by being united to him. God makes us rich in order to
strengthen the covenant he has established with us. Spiritual wealth is his
gift by his power; the power of the Holy Spirit who opens the Word in my mind
so that I can transmit it in proper time. So I am able to share all my physical
and psychical wealth, all my thoughts coming from Him as a ministry, as a gift
and as a testimony for the sake of my neighbors. Thus all the
richness of my being, spirit, soul and body doesn't belong to me but to Him.
Everything is coming from him and he sanctifies all the gifts I was given to
make them become his testimony in the eyes of all men. All this fortune is
there to help me in my ministry towards others. The more I get rich, the more
the covenant is being strengthened in my own life. I see and feel more and more
clearly his will in order to be able to apply it more and more each day.
The words of Yeshua refer to the rich who are unable to pass on what they
received. He is talking about those who keep everything for themselves, those
who use every spiritual, psychical and physical gift to build their own
existence. These will hardly get into the Kingdom of Heaven. If I say that rich
people will have difficulties to enter the Paradise, I would have to erase the
list of the names of all the patriarchs quoted in the Old Testament since they
were all wealthy men. They were rich men who passed on everything they had to
their descendants. They overtook themselves by making the testimony of the One
who blessed them. This sentence is talking about those who cannot share their
property. Those who are unable to live a life that makes the testimony of the
Lord and who are unable to serve him. It refers to those people who perhaps do
live as believers for many years but who has never shared anything from what
they had been given. It points those who aspire to perfection as good Pharisees
in ordr to become a better beliver but who at the same time forget to live. They
forget to live and avoid themselves from experiencing the reality, the aim and
the essence of the Word of God. For them, the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven
will be difficult.
“And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
Now we have reached the problem of the eye of the needle. We have to note
that the needle as a sewing instrument does never appear anywhere else in the
Bible. This is why I had a look to the Hebrew translation to see what this
expression really means. The Hebrew text says something like this: “It
is easier for the camel to cross the path of the pit of the trespass as for the
rich to enter the Kingdom of God”. The path of the pit of the
trespass. The trespass means an error, a fault a careless mistake
which is not the same as sin. It is not a matter of a conscious sin but rather
of something accidental just as when somebody stumbles and falls inadvertently.
The word is used for the trespass offerings in the Old Testament. It also refers
to the imperfect animals that were consecrated to that kind of offerings. It
referred to the animal that was not pure or that had some failure. It was not
really fit for the sacrifice. The pit or hole refers to the grave, the cave or
even the dungeon. It expresses a kind of closeness or concealing. And here is
the camel, the “boat of the desert”, one of the symbols of the middle east that
is considered as being an impure animal according to the law. Although it is
able to survive in very harsh conditions. It can keep water for a very long
time and it is an essential tool for the men of that region. The Hebrew word ofGamal do not simply refer to a camel but does also mean to
ripen, to bring fruits. What does this expression teach us?
The image of the camel crossing the path of the pit of the trespass is
a reflection of the one who is able to live in the hot desert without eating
much. It symbolizes those people who can live by drinking and eating just a
little from the Word but who are although still producing some fruits. He can
outlive very long with the little that he received. The same way in the
psychical level, thoughts and feelings can feed for a very long time. Despite
the fact that the faithful life has many obstacles on which we often slip, despite
that we often go on making mistakes all the time, just a little portion of
water is often enough to survive upon the path of faith. This little quantity
is enough to give life to the Word which is inside of us. Despite of the big
amount of faults, errors and imperfections, the believer is able to survive and
God is even able to use him to carry some fruits to others. This one will enter
more easily into the Kingdom of God since he is obedient and serving the King
with the little he has unlike the rich who lives in his avarice. God is able to
use those who have little but who are submitted. However he can do nothing with
those who have a lot, who are perfect and who are blessed but who do not obey
his orders.
The essence of the story of the young rich man could be resumed in one
sentence: the simple life of faithful has to become a ministering life at the
service of the Lord.
These words did also amaze the disciples of Yeshua. The story of the eye of
the needle was no longer addressed to the young rich man, since he had gone
away sorrowfully. It was addressed to the disciples, to those who were next to
him, those who were always with him, who got rich and edified, who drank the
words of Yeshua all day long. The conclusion was a warning for them. The
message was clear, they should never keep for themselves what they have learnt
from the Master. These words were a kind of introduction to their calling of
apostles after having been disciples. They had to transmit all they had received,
all they had seen, heard and experienced. This is how the promise was being
fulfilled in them. This is how this story becomes a message for us today too.
“When his disciples heard [it], they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who
then can be saved? But Jesus beheld [them], and said unto them, With men this
is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
Who can be saved? Who can see the
Kingdom of God? The word salvation is the same that the word Yeshua which means
the Savior. Who can then live in this freedom, in this blessing that brings him
salvation and fullness? Yeshua’s answer is exactly the following: “with
men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”. Our life and
our ministry cannot flourish under the impulse of men. The treasures that were
given to us cannot be passed on by our own will. God is the one who can give
life to our gifts and send us to ministry by strengthening his covenant in us.
Living with and in Him, our life of servant blossoms through the distribution
of our wealth. We do not have to get satisfed with a little water. A whole
store is waiting for us, a whole treasury is there. However we should not
conserve these treasures for our own business but we must distribute them to
those who are hungry. We don’t have to cross the eye of the needle or the path
of the pit of the trespass if we know what is our life and calling in the Body
of Christ. We just have to put back all we have, all our gifts and talents to
the One who has shared his heritage with us so that our life would also be
a gift for others if we are in his hands. A rich and blossoming life
in his service.
2011.03.29
